During Thursday's oral arguments, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned Solicitor General John Sauer about universal injunctions.
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00:00Could I ask you about a different type of case that has broader impact than on the particular claimant?
00:07Like a claimant who's alleging that the districting in a particular case has resulted in racial discrimination against him or her based on how the district is drawn.
00:19Now, a judicial decision about that one plaintiff would implicate the redistricting throughout the whole case.
00:27So, throughout the whole state, how does your theory address that situation?
00:35That would be what you might call an indivisible remedy, where what the court is doing there by, for example, redrawing the district lines is, as this court said in Gill against Whitford,
00:43the only way to remediate the injury of voting in an unconstitutionally drawn district.
00:47That is similar to abatement of a public nuisance or, for example, in the school desegregation cases where remediating the injury to the plaintiff before the court necessarily has collateral consequences to many others.
01:00Certain environmental cases might have a similar thing.
01:02For example, you stop the local plant from pouring, you know, water pollution into the water that benefits the plaintiff if it happens to benefit a bunch of other people.
01:10Now, that's very different than what we have in these universal injunctions where it is a divisible remedy.
01:14I mean, I point to the holding of the District of Massachusetts in this case, looking at the individual plaintiffs.
01:19That court said, well, obviously, I don't have to give a universal injunction to protect individuals other than the individual plaintiffs.
01:25They are given complete relief by an injunction that tells federal officials only to treat their children as citizens.
01:30But why, I guess the question is, why does the law require that?
01:34I mean, I appreciate that a court could, in a divisible remedy kind of case, narrow in to the plaintiff.
01:42But you seem to be suggesting that Article 3 or Rule 23 or something requires that.
01:49And I guess I don't really understand it.
01:52If I may offer two responses to that.
01:54In the Article 3 context, that is the principle announced in Worth against Selden, announced in Gill against Whitford, and Lewis against Casey, where this court has said again and again,
02:03what we do in the Article 3 context is grant remedies that are tailored to remove the injury to the complaining plaintiff.
02:12Sometimes they have even very broad collateral consequences.
02:15But in the Article 3 context, what the court has not done, and every time it's focused on this in National Treasuries Union, Employees Union, in the Perkins against Whitaker...
02:24I don't see why, then, the divisible remedies or indivisible remedies is an argument.
02:30I mean, if Article 3 is suggesting that the court has to focus in on the plaintiff only, then it would seem to me that that would be the power requirement across the board.
02:44I thought Article 3 was really about limiting the court's power with respect to jurisdiction.
02:50That we say the court has to determine whether or not there's subject matter jurisdiction over the issue and whether or not there's personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
03:01And once you have those things, the court can evaluate the merits of the legal issue and issue, especially in equity, appropriate relief.
03:13Now, I appreciate that there are some prudential concerns that the court considers, but it seems to me that in many, many, many circumstances, we have not required the court to limit their relief to the particular plaintiff as a matter of constitutional Article 3 requirement.
03:36I disagree with that. I'd offer a response both first as to Article 3 and then as to the scope of equitable authority.
03:43In the Article 3 context, this court said in Worth against Selden, for example, that the Article 3 judicial power exists only to redress the injury to the complaining parties.
03:52Again, in Gill against Whitford and Lewis against Casey...
03:55All right, so let me give you a hypothetical.
03:57So suppose we have a manufacturing plant that unlawfully releases environmental toxins into the air.
04:03And we have a plaintiff who lives near the plant, brings a nuisance lawsuit, and says they're being harmed by unlawful release.
04:12Your argument suggests that the judgment for the plaintiff has to narrow in on preventing, to the extent possible, preventing harm to the plaintiff.
04:24But it seems to me that that's not necessarily the case.
04:28You suggest with the Chief Justice in response to him that there can be incidental beneficiaries, that the court could say no more toxins if it's unlawful for the defendant to do that, correct?
04:42Yes, we do.
04:43So why? Why? If your Article 3 principle is correct?
04:46Because, again, the Article 3 principle is remedying the injury to the plaintiff, or a set of plaintiffs, could be many, who are before the court.
04:53That has collateral consequences, and that could help.
04:55Right.
04:55That has collateral consequences, and that could help.
04:55Let me...
04:56Let me...
04:56Let me...